At some point she must have fallen asleep in the chair, because her next memory was of early morning sunlight falling on her face, a horrible crick in her neck, and Arnaud shaking her awake.

"Come on," he said. "Time to go."

Paige's mouth tasted like death and every muscle in her body protested, but she managed to groan her way to her feet and stagger where Arnaud directed. It wasn't long after sunrise, judging by the diffuse light, but activity already buzzed through the bottom floor of Wayne Tower. And more focused activity than before: Bane's men were forming ranks in front of the doors. Arnaud guided her with one hand on her arm, and they made their way between the ranks of men and out into the sunlight and the sharp smell of autumn air.

It was dawn indeed, light managing to filter through the skyscrapers to reach them. The street was a mess, unsurprisingly. Concrete had been torn up in chunks and tossed in every direction, some of it landing to gouge out more massive holes in the road, some embedding in nearby buildings. There was hardly any unbroken asphalt to be seen, and even the sidewalks had been ripped to bits in some places. It reminded her of a video she had seen once of her brother as a toddler: he had been given a sheet cake for his first birthday and had mauled it gleefully, digging his fingers into it and ripping up strips and chunks of chocolate cake. The street looked like that, like some careless, cosmic toddler had dragged his fingers over the asphalt and utterly destroyed it.

The street was empty of people except for Bane's men, who seemed to be flowing in from every direction to enter Wayne Tower. Or perhaps it was now the former Wayne Tower. Two of the immense, camo-colored tanks from the Batman's armory sat idling in the middle of the road, squat and menacing. Their engines, and the thump of boots, were the only sounds on the street.

The utter silence suddenly hit her eardrums like its own kind of sound. Gotham was never this quiet—not even at four AM on a Sunday was it ever so terribly quiet. No sounds of cars in the distance, no murmur of voices, no background hum. She looked up and down the street and saw most of the streetlights were dark. A few still cycled between red, green, and yellow, as if wondering where all their traffic had gone. Power lines would have been hit in the explosions, of course. So gone too was the almost imperceptible sound of electricity that hummed through the streets, the chime of walkway indicators, the flickering of neon signs. All gone. All silenced.

Shattered glass and bits of rock and a million other pieces of detritus littered the road, and Paige had to steal glances at her surroundings while watching where she placed her bare feet. The cold asphalt seemed to bite at her soles, and she hoped, whatever would happen next, she would have a chance to find some shoes soon. Her feet were a sight, still covered in blisters from her trip into the sewers, and a growing collection of scratches made her wince at each step.

Arnaud led her up to the second of the two tanks. He tapped on the side window, and a moment later, Paige jumped as the top of the thing lifted with a hissing, pneumatic sound. It revealed another one of the soldiers glowering out at them, red scarf pulled up over his mouth and nose.

"She's to ride with you," Arnaud said, jerking his thumb towards her. "Bane's orders."

The man's hostile eyes rested on Paige, but then he gave an irritated shrug and gestured her in with a wave of his fingers. Arnaud wrapped his hand around her arm and, unnecessarily, guided her in. A second later the top hissed closed around her and the new man. Paige found herself huddling in her seat, hands tightly clasped in her lap. At least the interior was heated.

"Where are we—"

"Shut up," the man snarled before she could finish. He had an Australian accent, she thought, or maybe South African.

Paige rolled her lips together and instead turned to look over the dashboard. It was complex and heavy with dials, buttons, levers, and—

The man's hand moved in the corner of her vision. She flinched away, but too slowly. He flicked her hard in the cheekbone.

"And stop that too," he said. "Eyes out, or closed. I won't say it twice."

Paige's hand covered her cheek where the skin still stung, and she turned her gaze forward. Her eyes began watering automatically, though it was hardly the most painful thing that had happened in the last seventy-two hours, and she tried desperately to quell them. If she started crying now, she thought she might not be able to stop.

"Pathetic," the man said, low, and without much malice. He said it as if it were a statement.

The world went very quiet for a moment. Paige's thoughts rushed away from her head. For a moment, all she could hear was the faint buzzing that had waited in the background since the explosion. Everything was calm and her vision seemed to float away for a moment. And then flooded back in again, like the ocean pulling away before returning in a tsunami: Every shred of indignity she had undergone in the last four days, every spike of terror, every moment of quiet dread crowded into her mind and into her eyes and into her ears until all she could hear was buzzing and all she could see was white, blinding white, searing. Then the world came back in blazing color and she was somehow half on top of the man, screaming, and plunging one of the tiny metal bats down into his shoulder for the second time and drawing it out and stabbing it down again. He, too, was screaming. Then her side lit up in pain and she was lifted up and off of him by the force of his closed fist. Her hand was knocked against the window and she lost the bat, and then he was on top of her, jamming her painfully against the door and her seat, his eyes wide and wild with hate above his scarf, and she felt his hands close around her throat.

He was snarling something, a string of somethings that she only half heard. "—you little whore, I'm gonna snap you like a twig and rip off your fingernails, I'm—" Sound faded out again as her lungs began spasming. I'm dying, she thought, now, I'm dying now, after everything else that's happened. How awful. Her vision began to grow dim at the edges.

Then there was a rush of cold air and the weight was gone and the breath came burning back to her throat.

It took several moments of coughing, wheezing, and spluttering for her to fight back the blackness, and then it took several more for her to orient herself enough to make sense of the world again. She had tumbled out of the tank and was lying face down on the road, staring at a piece of painted plastic that had come from a car, judging by the "-oyota" still legible in white letters. There were sounds in the air that she could not identify through the rushing of blood. And odd shadows played on the ground in front of her. Slowly, she lifted her head enough to see what was causing them.

Bane stood within arm's reach, one hand in his coat pocket, his stance casual. In his other hand he held the man from the tank by the throat. The man's legs, more than a foot off the ground, kicked spasmodically, and his face was beginning to turn purple. His scarf had slipped down beneath his chin, revealing a blunt, brutish face with a twisting scar on his lower jaw that pulsed a livid, horrible white as he thrashed. A red patch slowly spread on his shoulder where Paige had stabbed him.

"Did I not," Bane said, his tone ghoulishly genial, "give orders for Miss Carter not to be harmed?"

Some normal color returned to the man's face as Bane apparently relaxed his grip. "She stabbed me!" he gasped. Then his mouth worked soundlessly as his air was once again cut off.

"And what does that have to do with anything?" Bane asked. "You are twice her size and a trained man. You are more than capable of restraining someone, are you not?"

Again, a slight reprieve. "Yes!" Again, no air.

"And yet you are incapable of restraining yourself," Bane said. He shook his head, as if in sadness, but Paige could see the gleam of enjoyment in his eyes. "I have no need of men without self-discipline. Goodbye, Mr. DuPreez."

Paige felt the sensation of DuPreez strangling her as she looked into his bulging eyes, and she felt a surge of denial.

No.

In the moment, it didn't matter that the man would almost certainly have killed her without Bane's intervention. It didn't matter that he was almost certainly a murderer already, a bad man, a terrorist, and a threat to her and her city. All that mattered was the fear in his eyes.

And she rested her hand on Bane's leg, just above his boot.

His eyes snapped down towards her at once, anger clear in his eyes. "Yes?" he asked, the word hissing out of his mask with a kind of poisonous patience.

She tried to speak, hacked out a cough, and then managed to wheeze, "I—I stabbed him. Unprovoked," she said. And—she had, she realized. She had stabbed a man. The thought alone almost sent blackness swimming over her weak vision. Never in her most terrible anxieties had she ever thought she could attack someone like that. But the thought had to be shoved aside for now. "I—I went kind of crazy and I stabbed him. It's not his fault for defending himself. I'm not seriously injured. Please let him go, Mr. Bane."

Bane looked down at her, the anger shifting into something more like derision. "Still so polite," he mocked. DuPreez's kicking was beginning to slow. "Even while begging for the life of a man who would have killed you."

Paige set her jaw. She rasped, "You told me that—" Another cough interrupted for a moment, then she resumed—"that one good turn deserves another. Please, let him go. Please."

"Are you quite sure you want to trade your favor away for the life of this man?" he asked, shaking DuPreez slightly. The kicks were almost entirely gone now, and a slow, thin rasp was all that escaped his throat.

"Yes," Paige said, knowing that it was a bad idea but not caring. "Yes, I'm sure! Let him go before—" Coughing once again drove her to silence.

Bane shrugged, a massive movement of shoulders, and, with a careless motion, he released the man's neck and let him fall to the ground beside Paige.

Twitching, DuPreez wheezed and gasped. Bane waved a hand, and two more men, red scarves pinned over their chests, approached. One of them trained a rifle on the prone man, while the other kicked him onto his back. With efficient motions he stripped DuPreez of all his weapons, his boots, his vest, and his jacket. These were piled beside him. And, last of all, with a sneer on his lips, the man ripped DuPreez's red scarf from around his neck, and placed it in Bane's waiting palm.

DuPreez sobbed, once.

"Go," Bane said, looking down at him. DuPreez stared back up with protuberant, uncomprehending eyes. "If I or any of my men see you, we will kill you, with or without Miss Carter's intervention."

Slowly, agonizingly, DuPreez got onto his knees, then his feet. Then he shambled away, limping, his arms tight around his middle. Blood trailed behind him in intermittent drops. He looked not at all frightening now: just a wounded, abandoned soul, running away. Just before he reached an alleyway some twenty yards away, he turned back. His eyes found Paige's, and she saw in his face such a horrible, withering hatred, that it actually made her gasp. Then he turned again and was gone, his footsteps inaudible.

"It would have been kinder to kill him," said Bane, a smile clear in his voice. "You have not made a friend."

Paige didn't respond, only stared at the alleyway into which he had disappeared.

"Search her," Bane said.

The two men moved over to her. One of them hauled her to her feet by one arm. As soon as she was vertical, her knees promptly buckled under her weight. When did I last eat? she thought. Her head was light and floaty, and little white sparks danced in her vision. The same man, a look of long-suffering annoyance on his face, slung her arm over his shoulder and held her upright, while the other checked her pockets with practiced efficiency. He found the other two bats in her coat pockets, and a receipt from her most recent grocery run. All items were dutifully surrendered to Bane, who examined them, tossed aside the receipt, and made the bats vanish into his coat.

That's littering, Paige thought, and almost giggled. Add it to his list of crimes. Off with his head. Her shoulders shook a little with suppressed laughter.

Bane eyed her for a moment, noting her expression, then pointed at the boots. "Take them," he said. "You will need them. And Mr. DuPreez," he added, looking towards the alleyway, "no longer does."

Paige looked down at the shoes. Her head felt a little like one of those tilt-a-whirl rides, thoughts sliding off it as it pitched from side to side. She tried to step forward, then remembered, as the motion did nothing, that she was weak as a kitten and currently being held upright by the soldier beside her.

A burst of static swept out of Bane's mask. "Load her in," he said, then turned and headed for the driver's side.

The man holding her sighed, very quietly, then turned and carried her towards the tank. Her feet made cursory attempts at walking, more out of politeness than anything. A moment later, she was deposited into the seat once more. The boots clunked one after another into the footwell.

Bane folded himself into the seat beside her, somehow making the enormous tank settle slightly. The doors hissed downwards, and for the second time, she was encased in warmth, with an unknown, dangerous man beside her. Only this man held not only her, but every one of Gotham's twelve million souls in the palm of his hand. Sitting down again seemed to be helping her head to clear. She took a deep breath, and wondered if she could smell hints of radiation on him—did radiation have a smell? She imagined something like ozone, sharp and pungent. The air did have a tinge to it; it was the chemically floral smell of whatever was pumped through his mask, helping him function like oil running through a machine.

I can't go on like this, she thought. There's nothing left in the tank. I can't keep going. What kind of fuel did this tank use, anyway? She imagined Bane leaning against the side of the thing at a gas station, watching the gallons tick up on the display, other patrons gawking from their sedans. She had to choke down another weak laugh.

"Is your mind breaking already?" Bane asked. He sounded vaguely amused. He fiddled with some of the controls, and then they were in motion, the tank growling as its massive wheels ground over rubble and detritus. "I'd thought better of you."

"No," she managed. Her throat still felt like it had been rubbed down with steel wool. She wondered if she'd bruise. "Just… tired. So tired. Hungry. Why are you doing this to me?" The last popped out without her intent, but she didn't wish it back. She let her head fall to the side to watch Bane. Behind him, the landscape of ruined Gotham rolled by, unremarked upon.

He kept his eyes ahead. His fingers drummed once on the controls, then lay still again. "What did God say to Abraham about Sodom and Gomorrah?" he asked.

The non sequitur threw her for a loop. It took a moment to organize her thoughts enough to remember. "That it was thoroughly wicked," she said. "None righteous."

"Perhaps," he said, "you are the one righteous of Gotham. Singled out from its destruction."

Paige was stunned for a moment. Then she shook again with more weak laughter, which burned her throat as it came out, but still warmed her insides. It was all just so unbelievable. "What, me?" she managed. "No. If there's one righteous, it isn't me. Sorry. Wrong woman."

"You give yourself too little credit," Bane said. His mechanical voice overfilled the space they were in, even heard through Paige's dulled ears. "Few others would have stopped in that alleyway. Fewer still would have helped. Like the Good Samaritan." He glanced at her, and she thought she saw amusement in his pale eyes.

How could he be so calm? After everything he had just done in the last twenty-four hours, how could he be calm? "The Good Samaritan," she said, "didn't get kidnapped. And the man he helped didn't commit mass murder."

He nodded once, an acknowledgment. "Perhaps," he said, a hint of venom entering his amusement, "you should exercise better judgment in dark alleyways."

"Is that why you're doing this to me?" she asked. "Because I made a bad choice in that alleyway?"

"Did you?" he returned.

She fell silent. Had she? If she could turn back time, knowing now what he would do, she certainly would have done something different. But had it been wrong at the time? She didn't know. And her head felt too full of cotton to puzzle it out.

"We're here," Bane said. The tank ground to a halt. "Put on the boots."

While the doors hissed up and Bane emerged from the tank, Paige managed to bend in her seat and stuff her feet into the shoes, one at a time. She was lucky: she had large feet, for a woman, and DuPreez had fairly small feet. If she'd had socks on, the shoes would have been almost a perfect fit. She hoped the man who had tried to kill her hadn't had athlete's foot or toenail fungus. Wouldn't that be the perfect topping to a perfect day.

And you stabbed him…

Arnaud appeared beside the tank to help her out, and she was reminded, by the golden November sunlight in her eyes, that the day had barely even started. There was still so much time for everything to go wrong.

She was able to stand, mostly, but Arnaud kept a hand on her arm to steady her as she looked around. It took her a moment to take everything in. This portion of the city was actually fairly untouched by the devastation. The buildings were on the smaller side for Gotham, generally six stories or less. It was a rougher area: the building they were parked in front of was grand, with wide pillars and enormous steps leading up to it, but she could see graffiti and dilapidation in the surrounding buildings. She didn't recognize the street names. Around twenty of Bane's mercenaries were ranging up and down the steps of the large, columned building, red scarves stark against their muted camo. The street was empty of cars, but she could see tentative huddles of people clumped at either end of the street and peeking out of alleyways. To her surprise, as she stepped around the back of the tank she saw a huddle of people on the opposite sidewalk, quite close. They had cameras, mics, suits—reporters. For a moment she could only stare at them, a starving woman confronted with a feast. Their nervous chatter floated over from across the street. Voices, regular human voices. How long had it been since she had heard a friendly voice? Seen a face that held no danger? It felt like years. The width of the street seemed as enormous and impassible as the ocean. Still, she took a step forward. If she ran, would one of Bane's men drag her back? Or would they finally let her go? Arnaud shifting so he was standing closer to the street than her was the answer.

One of the reporters noticed her, pointing, and a moment later the cameras were all facing her way, like a cluster of black eyes. She wondered what possible interest she could hold for them, given the present company, but then her sluggish brain caught up. Her kidnapping had surely been a feature of all the news reports. A random Gotham stock analyst, taken by the masked terrorist—why? For what purpose? If only she knew herself. She had a moment's relief that this, at least, could be a message to her mother about her own safety. I'm alive, Mom, she thought, looking into one of the cameras. I'm not going to leave you too.

A hollow metal sound echoed from beside her, and the cameras swiveled as she turned herself. Bane was standing atop the tank, hands in his pockets against the morning chill.

When he spoke, his voice echoed off the buildings and down the empty street. "Behind you," he boomed, "stands a symbol of oppression. Blackgate Prison."

Paige started, then twisted to look at the building behind the reporters. Yes, barbed wire decorated the roof. No wonder she hadn't recognized the street; this was Blackgate Island. It held the prison, a municipal courthouse, and some of the cheapest housing in the city—and the city's second-highest crime rate, after the Narrows. Only a constant, heavy police presence kept it from being worse.

Bane continued. "Where a thousand men have languished for years. Under the name of this man—" He reached into an interior pocket and drew out what looked like a picture, though Paige couldn't see it from this angle. "—Harvey Dent. Held up to you as a shining example of justice."

He paused for a moment, and Paige could see the huddles of people beginning to come closer, pulled in like a school of timid fish drawn to scattered bait. Bane went on, something like regret in his voice. "You have been supplied with a false idol." He tore the picture in two and tossed aside the pieces. "To stop you from tearing down this corrupt city, and rebuilding it the way it should have been rebuilt generations ago. Let me tell you the truth about Harvey Dent—in the words of Gotham's Police Commissioner, James Gordon." He reached into his coat again—how many pockets did the man have?—and withdrew a bundle of papers. And as he read their contents, the crowd inching closer with every word, Paige's insides began to grow cold.

Harvey Dent had been a lie.

In the grand scheme of Gotham politics, it wasn't too surprising. Dent had always seemed a shade too white, a touch too pure, to be real. Something had to be wrong. Gotham DA's didn't foil their own assassination attempts in the middle of a courtroom, then die martyrs. It wasn't the way of this city.

Still, it was a shock. Dent had left the city better than he'd found it. His policies had been all the talk on campus when Paige was a student at GU. But then, if Gordon's speech were true, then the Batman—the man she had seen perhaps die at the hands of Bane only days ago—had been the true hero of Gotham all along.

And Paige had indirectly led him to his end.

Bane finished his borrowed speech, and stunned silence fell. The crowd surrounded them now, several hundred citizens filling the middle of the street. Mutters began rising. Then the mutters became louder, became murmurs, became noise, became a babble. The news crew, left in its own bubble of space, cast anxious glances around at the sea of humanity that was rapidly growing tempestuous. And beneath the crowd, Paige began to hear a dull roar. Coming from the prison. And if she could hear it, that meant it had to be quite loud already.

"And do you accept this man's resignation?"

The roar grew louder. The crowd grew louder, a few shouts rising up. The faces Paige could pick out in the press were twisted by scowls, heads were shaking, fists were clenched.

"Do you accept the resignation of all the liars? All the corrupt?" He twisted the word as if it came from the depths of his chest, like something truly vile.

The roar grew louder. The crowd was agitated now, moving and shifting like a restive animal. "Yes!" a few shouted, "Yes!" Someone threw a stray chunk of asphalt towards the prison. It hit the metal doors without a resounding CLUNG, and the reporters all jolted as if with a missile strike.

Bane waved a hand, and the turrets of one of the tanks pivoted to aim at the front doors of the prison. Which happened to be right behind the knot of reporters. Wisely, they fled both ways down the streets, though cameras remained trained on Bane even as their controllers ran. He went on, "We take Gotham from the corrupt. The rich. The oppressors of generations who've kept you down with myths of opportunity. And we give it to you," here he paused, hands spread wide, "the people. Gotham is yours—none shall interfere, do as you please."

And on cue, the tank fired, red flames gouting out and blowing the metal doors wide open. The crowd gave a shout, some in fear or surprise, and some in excitement.

Oh no, Paige thought.

"But start by storming Blackgate," Bane continued, scything a hand down towards the prison, "and freeing the oppressed!"

The roar crescendoed. And the crowd burst into shouts.

Bane's men, all but Arnaud and two others who remained behind Bane on the steps, flowed into the open doors, carrying duffel bags. Duffel bags that Paige knew, from her time below, were full of weapons.

This city is going to die in blood.

Then a thought came to her, brilliant, blinding. She couldn't believe she hadn't thought of it before. "Where are the police?" she hissed. The thousands of Gotham police officers, armed to the teeth against threats long since contained in the prison before her. Where were they? Bane didn't have enough men to stand against them—even by arming the prison population. They were untrained, a mob. Hope blossomed within her. The police could—

"Dealt with," Arnaud said, his voice smug. He tapped a foot on the ground. "Buried in the sewers. Like rats."

Hope died.

Prisoners emerged in a torrent, orange jumpsuits shining in the light, AK-47s raised high. Bane's men walked more steadily in the midst of the column, sharks in a school of piranha. Some of the men fired into the air. The shots joined the cacophony of shouts, jubilant, violent, terrifying. The crowd rushed forward to intermingle with them, some figures meeting with fierce hugs or cries of recognition.

"Step forward, those who would serve," Bane shouted, still able to project over the noise. The prisoners—former prisoners, now—turned towards him, pulling the crowd with them. Figures still slipped off the sides, running down the streets with abandon, guns clutched to their chests. But a majority approached Bane. They were shepherded by the red scarves, who paced along the perimeter of the crowd, shaping it. The crowd pressed in to form an outer ring. The closest convicts were only a few yards away from Paige, and some, eyes somehow bright and dark at once, were eying her already.

Men straight from prison out onto the streets, she thought, armed, dangerous. If Bane doesn't control them, Gotham will be gone by tomorrow morning.

Bane continued, and the crowd quieted partially for him. "For an army will be raised. The powerful will be ripped from their decadent nests, and casts out into the cold world that we know, and endure. Courts will be convened. Spoils will be enjoyed. Blood will be shed. The police…" Here he paused for a moment, contempt coloring his voice, as hisses and renewed shouts came up from the crowd, "...will survive, as they learn to serve true justice. This great city—it will endure. Gotham will survive."

The men erupted into a new round of cheers and shouts. The red scarves, too, were shouting, though they kept their hands on their guns as they did so. A dull ringing began in Paige's ears from all the noise. As the cheers continued, Bane stepped down from the tank, and then, surprisingly, he turned to her and beckoned.

Arnaud had to draw her forward, stumbling in her borrowed shoes. Paige found herself standing in front of Bane, the crowd of orange jumpsuits and red scarves and ordinary citizens—ordinary? Could such a word be used anymore in Gotham?—penning her in on the left, Arnaud on her right. Bane looked down at her with an inscrutable expression. Reaching into his coat, he pulled out DuPreez's scarf. The red unfurled in his hands like a banner. The crowd stilled a little, anticipation running through it like a current.

Bane did possibly the last thing Paige had expected. With gentle, almost paternal motions, he put the scarf around her neck, then tied it in a loose, warm knot. Right over where DuPreez's fingers had nearly crushed her windpipe. The fabric was surprisingly soft and thin, the scarf wider and longer than it looked when folded up on the mercenaries. He lingered for a moment, fingers still on the scarf, looking down at her. There was a light in his eyes she did not understand, and she did not want to.

With the last, tiniest brush under her chin, he turned back to the crowd. He flicked his fingers towards her, or, rather, towards Arnaud, who drew her back and away from him. She went willingly, and as she turned, she heard Bane begin to speak, more personally and even individually, to the convicts and the crowd. His new army.

"Some of you," he said, "may earn such honors. This city will have need of men in the coming days. Men who will establish the new order."

And then she was too far down the street to hear him, Arnaud still holding her arm, and two other men walking, one on each side of them.

For several blocks, Paige could not speak at all. Then, finally, she managed, in a raspy whisper, "You can't do this."

Arnaud, looking straight ahead, did not dignify this with a response.

Paige felt something like panic bubbling up in her veins, which she did not have the capacity—perhaps not even the desire—to fight down. "You can't do this!" she said, then realized, belatedly, that she'd shouted. And yet the three men only walked, a smirk on the face of the man she could see on the other side of Arnaud.

Did they not understand? Was it possible they didn't comprehend the scene they had just left? "Those men," she said, "are killers. Rapists. Mass murderers, gangsters, criminals. And Bane just gave each of them a gun like it's a free lollipop at a checkout!"

"Those men," Arnaud said, and now an ugly smile played on his face too, "are oppressed citizens, unjustly imprisoned under the Dent Act. Didn't you listen?"

"Not all of them!" she howled, the sound bouncing around the empty streets. "Some of them are crazy! Where did you think all the inmates went after Arkham all but shut down? Viktor Zsaz is in there, the Joker's men, Jonathan Crane—don't you understand what you've done?"

Arnaud finally looked at her then, and his smile dropped away. "Yes," was all he said.

Paige actually felt her heart fail for a second. She stumbled, but Arnaud only calmly pulled her along and kept her upright.

"This city," she said, more to herself than anything, "is going to become hell."

"It already was," Arnaud said.

And they walked in silence.